MUMBAI: Anurradha Prasad's B.A.G Films is pursuing opportunities in new media avenues and also eyeing the animation frontier. The company has entered into a joint venture with a Korean firm Sieundesign, which has a presence in the production, distribution and licensing of animated movies and TV series.
The JV is proposed to be named “Sieun & B.A.G. Animation Pvt. Ltd.” with both companies holding an equal stake. The business model will involve both creation of IP for global audiences as well as servicing outsourced projects.
Speaking about the development, Prasad shared,“This initiative represents B.A.G. Films’ entry into the exciting and strongly growing animation business. We are delighted to tie up with Sieundesign Co Ltd, which is a leading international animation player and look forward leveraging its experience to building a strong presence in India.”
B.A.G, is already running a media school --iSOMES (International School of Media and Entertainment Studies) and through the new JV, the company will be extending into animation education too.
"We understand that we require a huge work force and so we will be training people as a backward integration excercise. The animation course starts in October," remarked Prasad.
"As a content company B.A.G films has always stayed at the forefront of cutting edge technology and even in the animation JV, the idea is to create a synergy, a best of both the worlds where we will utilise India's expertise in animation production and combine it with the Korean strength of concieving characters and content," concluded Prasad.
Sieundesign presently owns more than 30 IPs of cartoon character content, which include Black Jelly, Booby, Yamm, Newton, Flower Terry, Tomato, 205 Friends, Little Tinny, Mr. Cool, Dear Alice, Dennis Family, Eyeme Angel, Emily, Pumpkin Seed, Oh-Baby, Brambly and Moose Bear besides the children performance Rise Up Monster character development. It also supplies cartoon content to several Korean mobile and on line services.
All animation and character licenses owned by Sieundesign internationally will be owned in India by the joint venture entity.
At the same time, B.A.G. Films is also looking at initiatives including video streaming, DVD, animation and gaming, interactive content for broadband, mobisodes, wireless transmission and the internet, besides identifying new uses for existing technologies such as digital libraries, interactive story telling and distance learning, according to a posting today on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
The company is also contemplating providing voice content including news, cricket & sports, jokes, astro forecasts, celebrity interviews, Bollywood reviews and music album reviews in four languages namely Hindi, English, Tamil and Malayalam.
B.A.G is already working the major cellular operators Airtel and Hutch on IVR.
On the movie front, the production house proposes to release two films during the current calendar year. Zindagi Rocks, with Sushmita Sen and Shiney Ahuja as the lead actors is directed by Tanuja Chandra with music composed by Anu Malik. Then there is a Punjabi love story directed by Gurbir S Grewal with Jimmy Shergil and Kulraj Randhawa as the lead actors.
